Griot

West Africa is a poor, helpless region who is living in poverty. West Africa has poor education for those who can afford schooling. Slavery still continues today, as hundreds of people used as hard labor. The topography is beautiful, covering 85% of West Africa with deserts, semi-deserts, steppe, grasslands, forests, and rain forests. The government is a federal republic, and the states in the region is far away from each other and the religion revolves around the everyday lifestyle. Culture is…

Senegal artist involved in Hip Hop, often incorporate, Tasu and Kebetu the art of telling stories over the numerous drum beats to aide in the discussion of political manifestation of Senegalese crime and corruption. The evolution of the social role of griots has developed so that Senegalese rappers have become standing historians and social commentators. During the year 2000 Senegalese rappers protested through songs the corruption, and violence plague which plagued the country after the…

I tell you what freedom is to me: No fear. During an era where Police brutality, social injustices and mistreatment of African Americans were exceptionally high, a young woman used her voice for tranquility. That woman was Nina Simone and she became known as the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. She managed to turn something so horrendous into Music and used her platform to turn it into activism. Nina stood up for her beliefs and sacrificed her career with her involvement. Even in the…

Introduction In this essay I want to explore the impact that rappers’ lyrics, views, and life styles have on subsequent generations, and how people that listen to their music are affected in their everyday lives by these rappers messages in rap music and its associated media. This essay aims to examine a variety of artistic forms such as lyrics, music videos and associated art work. Additionally, it will reflect on the social, cultural and historical background of rap music. Historical…

Throughout the process of historicizing the past, women are primarily left out of the history books and stories for their contribution to civilization. However through the unearthing of antiquity it is clear that women were prominent in both the advances and declines of human society and culture. Using examples from three different regions of Africa this essay will discuss the influence that women had in shaping the history of African politics, culutre, and society. Ancient Egypt is an African…

the most influential byproducts of hip-hop culture, giving black youth a socially acknowledged voice with which they could speak out against the injustices they faced. Gathering influence from the blues and jazz of the ‘50s and ‘60s, as well as from griots, respected orators, historians, and singers of West Africa, rap consists of spoken rhyme over an often synthesized…

The Sub-Saharan long distance commodity and slave trade as well as the syncretic interweaving of Islamic culture and traditional African culture accounts for Africa’s major influence as a superpower from the first until fifteenth centuries. Traders from all over the world were drawn to Africa’s riches in gold, ivory, and human beings. The fact that Africa was rich in resources posed influence in itself. Considering that a great number of the visiting traders were Muslims and they begin to…

knowledge to old white men. Nana Peazant’s knowledge is ancestral and cultural, yet gives her the wisdom of any great scholar - the African intelligence is put toe to toe with the Greco-Roman mythologies in a manner similar to the asserting of the African Griot style as valid in comparison to the linear narrative. The respect of African knowledge is also evident in the peaceful co-existence…

Segu through a Historic and Cultural Perspective Segu, by Maryse Conde is a five-part prose centered around four brothers born into the prestigious Traore family. It is a novel gravely satiated with the history of a kingdom in Mali during the late 17 to early 1800s, a time of immense cultural refinement. These alterations depicted in the novel are: the spread of Islam, the slave trade, and the mutation of identity due to such refinements. Due to this, the lenses of New Historicism, Cultural…

Renaissance, and Jacob Lawrence saw how these contributed to the lifestyles of people around him. Lawrence's imagination was sparked by ordinary everyday tasks, events, and routines. (Whitney Museum of American Art, 2002) Lawrence became the neighborhood griot after realizing the importance of his heritage, along with the community's interest in its ancestral folklore. (Whitney Museum of American Art,…